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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25627582">The oh-Eru-please-no</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own/pseuds/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own'>I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Suilad Aran Thranduil [50]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(in that we come back because tptb like us), Galion and Thranduil are platonic life-partners, Happy Ending, I got sidetracked from posting this, I stayed up late to write this because boredom, I was so exhausted I wrote 'ered luin' instead of 'amon lanc', Misunderstandings, No Beta we die like Oropher, Oop, and it wasn't until just now that I realized, and you will never convince me otherwise, by a new plot bunny, can I please have some peace in this goddamn brain of mine?, except I have the Grammarly ad on for Firefox so if that counts?, oh and I gave Thran green eyes because that's been my headcanon image since before the movies, or Glorfindel, then I guess we die like Gandalf, you can pry it from my cold dead hands</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:49:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,826</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25627582</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own/pseuds/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"The thing was all mortals were going to lose the ones they loved. It was the way life worked. But for the most of the time, that reality was so far off in the mind that it had no more weight than a mere hypothetical. There were reminders, however, and the almost's, the near-misses, the oh-God-please-no's, snapped your chain and got you to stop and feel what was in your heart." ~J.R Ward</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Legolas Greenleaf &amp; Thranduil</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Suilad Aran Thranduil [50]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/65456</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The oh-Eru-please-no</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was written out of pure boredom...</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s been months since he last saw his father. There have been longer stretches of time than that which have separated them. The years that had followed the Battle of Five Armies when he had been chasing a pre-teen then a young teenage Estel around Rivendell. All the while his father and all of his friends had continued to battle the darkness in Mirkwood that was once the Greenwood, and for all his father still clung to the old name, Legolas always knew the truth there. The Greenwood withered the day Amon Lanc fell.</p><p>Still, it’s been months since they last saw each other now, and many times in those months he thought perhaps he would never get the chance again, not in this body, at least. Then, the war had ended, Sauron defeated, the Dark One’s army shattered and scattering and he, Gimli, and Aragorn all made it through. All of the Fellowship bar Boromir made it through. It was against all the odds and Legolas’ own beliefs when they set out from Rivendell. A suicide mission that had only killed one of nine. Legolas wonders what they ever did to get so lucky.</p><p>Months and months of distance, of fighting, of thinking ‘today is the day I die’. Months and months of forcing himself not to reach out for his father's mind, the way he hasn't in a long time, because if he reached out, he’d find himself marching home before he could even blink and he’d given himself a duty, one that he’d sworn to himself he would fulfill come hell or high water, as the humans in Dale would say. Months and months of separation and while he wants nothing more than to send himself marching home, he knows he mustn’t. Aragorn still has yet to be crowned, still has yet to be wed and Legolas cannot so easily abandon his friend.</p><p>Indeed, he thinks, he never will abandon him. He will linger in this land until Aragorn breathes his last, until Aragorn goes somewhere that Legolas can never follow, no matter how much Legolas may wish to. Estel isn’t the little boy he taught the art of the bow to anymore, and Legolas isn’t even sure if Aragorn even remembers the promise Legolas made him all those years ago, but Legolas does. The vow that Legolas would stay at Aragorn’s side until his friend bid him go.</p><p>It was this promise that saw him disobeying his father’s orders once again, knows his father would have forbidden him from leaving the forest if he’d known what his son would do. If he had known that his son would hear 'go to the Council and come straight back' and disregard it without thought, instead. He hopes his father hasn’t spent the months worrying, but he knows his father well, now. Where before he couldn’t read him, couldn’t see beneath the masks his father wore like a second skin, now he knows better, knows how to see under the masks, how to read between the cracks. His father worries for him ceaselessly and Legolas, if he’s being honest, has never given his father a reason to do otherwise.</p><p>Even now, with the war ended, he does not start a trek homeward. Instead, he lingers in a broken citadel, surrounded by rubble and dead or dying trees. He waits for the Lady Arwen and her escort to arrive, so he can beg them for any news of his home because there are none who would be willing to go so far North to carry his news and bring any back.</p>
<hr/><p>Arwen’s delegation arrives with much excitement, but Legolas finds his gaze stuck on one specific group of elves that journeyed with her, arrayed as they are in the dark greens and forest browns of Greenwood the Great, at their lead is one elf who should not ever be seen without their complimenting other half, said other half being the one who should rightfully be leading this delegation. Legolas’ blood freezes inside of him, his breath catching in his throat as his heart stills.</p><p>
  <em>No! No! No! Please. Please. Please. </em>
</p><p>He wants to rush forward, to demand answers, but the Greenwood delegation hasn’t seen him, and he can’t convince his body to move, his thoughts still screaming. He watches the elves pass in horrified, terrified, choked silence. Knows he should be standing at Aragorn’s side, ready to welcome them, but he’d been too busy communing with some of the only living trees he could find in the city. He’s grateful for it now, doesn’t think he’d have been able to keep from making a scene if he’d been at his friend’s side.</p><p>The elves pass and somehow he finds the ability to suck in air through his lungs, his heart shakily beating in his chest, as the blood pumps far, far too loudly in his ears. The sound that escapes from him is most assuredly a sob, but he doesn’t care. Turning on trembling legs and letting them carry him away. He wants to go and find the Greenwood delegation and demand answers, but he doesn’t want to. He’s always run away from his problems in the end, now is no different. The answers he seeks will find him when they get tired of waiting, that’s how it always is and for right now, he’d like to be able to pretend like nothing has changed.</p><p>
  <em>Everything has changed.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>It’s very late into the night when Legolas sneaks back into the rooms Aragorn had assigned for him. Gimli's was just down the hall and Aragorn's not too far around the corner, the rest of the Fellowship not all that far from them, either. It’d been surreal those first few days when Frodo had still been in the Healing Halls, but otherwise, the Fellowship had all been together under one roof again.</p><p>His heart had felt so light when he’d learned that Sam and Frodo had survived, the way Merry and Pippin had survived. The relief that the only one they had truly lost at the Breaking of the Fellowship had been Boromir, a soldier, a warrior, a man who was ready and willing to give his life for their world, knowing exactly what sacrifice he was making. He still mourns the Man of Gondor, but Boromir knew what he was doing, unlike the Hobbits, who came out of a sense of duty and loyalty but didn’t truly have any idea what would face them on the long, dark road to Mordor.</p><p>Legolas had thought it a miracle, some divine gift from Eru that they all survived. Now, he thinks, he knows better. He feels the tears burning in his eyes and he hastily wipes them away even as he ducks through the door into his chambers, his breaths coming in little gasping waves as the grief and rage rise in him again.</p><p><em>“There are no miracles in this world, Las nin, save those we make for ourselves.” </em>His father’s voice sounds in his ears and he’d always disagreed, always argued against it, thought it was simply his father choosing to be cold and morose as usual, but now he knows better. <em>“Eru and the Valar care nothing for Ennor, Legolas. The destruction they let, first, Morgoth and, later, Sauron, wage is proof enough of that. Were they to care, they would have controlled their own, as we do.” </em></p><p>Nothing in this life is free, victory always comes at a cost, so does survival and he should have known that. Should have known immediately that something was wrong. That the odds of eight out of nine surviving the road to Mordor was just too much of a good thing. He shouldn’t have been celebrating it.</p><p>With a bit more force than necessary, he tears off his boots and crawls into the bed feeling suddenly like the little elfling he was when he learned of his mother’s passing. He remembers how he would curl up within the blankets of his bed and refuse to come out. His ada would come and lie down on the bed beside him, complaining of the cold and begging to be allowed to shelter under the blankets with him. He remembers how he’d always relent and hold up the blankets so his ada could crawl inside them with him and then he’d hide them both from the world, even as he curled up against his ada’s chest and felt safe when his ada’s arms wrapped around him.</p><p>He doesn’t remember the last time he hugged his father. It hadn’t been when he had left because everything had happened so suddenly and their farewell had been public, and he knew his ada tried not to treat him as anything other than another of his subjects. A request Legolas had made when he was younger and full of so much self-righteous anger at the elf who had only ever tried to keep him safe. A request he made of his father that he never took back and now he doesn’t remember when he last embraced his father. Doesn’t remember the last time he’d let his father hug him. Let, because he had been the one to pull away, first. Angry at how safe his father could make him feel, even as he became old enough to realize that his father hadn’t saved his mother.</p><p>Now, of course, he recognizes that his father couldn’t have saved his mother, that it had taken almost everything his father was just to save himself, and Legolas had spent centuries throwing that back in his face. Centuries wasting time that he thought he had in abundance, but he <em>didn’t</em>. Aragorn had parroted about never going to bed angry. That sleeping on your anger just gives it time to fester and there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever be able to take any of it back.</p><p>How much of his life did he spend being irrationally angry with his father? So secure in the knowledge that they had all the time in the world to negotiate their way to a peace. But his father had never been the one who needed to say sorry. Legolas was the one who got angry first and refused to let the fire die, had let Tauriel and others fan the flames higher and higher and higher until his father had no choice but to step back or be burnt, again.</p><p>He had been the one to demand they adhere to their roles, King and Prince, Ruler and Subject, yet never father and son. Now, it was too late.</p><p><em>“Careful what words you say or actions you take in anger and impulsivity, my friend, for you cannot turn back time and you have no guarantee that you’ll be able to mend that which you break.” </em>Estel had cautioned him when he and the twins had been fighting over something stupid back when the boy had still not yet learned his true heritage. Legolas had scoffed at the gentle advice and failed to heed it, as he always did. Estel is mortal, he’d justified it to himself, he doesn’t know what it is to have all the time you could possibly ever need. <em>Foolish</em>. </p><p>What use is all the time in the world when you can’t turn it back?</p>
<hr/><p>He doesn’t know how long he’s been lying there, curled up in a ball under his blankets, his eyes long ago become puffy and sore from crying, his throat scratched raw when he hears the soft, barely-there scuff of elven feet on the cool stone floor. He sucks in a shaking breath and clings tighter to his blankets.</p><p>“Go away, Galion.” He says, assuming the elf who has always been like an uncle to him would be the one to seek him out. The footsteps stop for a moment, before continuing on again. Legolas wants to curse, wants to rage at him to go away, to yell at him to not say an Eru damn word and just go away, He doesn’t want to hear whatever Galion is going to tell him. Confirmation will come to him eventually, he knows, but he doesn’t want it to be <em>now. </em> “Galion-“</p><p>“What has your uncle done to upset you so, Las nin?” he freezes, the breath escaping him in a shocked gasp, his blood suddenly pumping too loudly in his ears and he feels dizzy even though he’s lying down and, for a horrible moment, he feels like he’s going to throw up. “Legolas?” the voice is so full of concern now, Legolas can’t remember how to breathe, his eyes feeling like they’ve been dipped in acid as the tears form anew.</p><p>The bed dips under the undeniable weight of a living being and he lets go of one of the blankets to clutch at his chest, wondering if this is what the humans mean when they speak of heart attacks. The pain is excruciating and the noise he makes isn’t elven, he knows.</p><p>“Ada?” the word finally chokes from him; he hears his father sigh.</p><p>“Aye, tithen pen.” His father murmurs, the concern and confusion in his voice is so clear, so real and Legolas doesn’t want to trust it, but he wants nothing else more. “It’s cold this far South, Las nin, is there perhaps space under the blankets for two?” the familiar query wrenches a whimper from his throat, he hears his father’s breath catch. “Legolas?”</p><p>He rips the blankets away, his eyes hungrily seeking out his father’s form, even as the sudden light stabs into them. He takes in the familiar white-blond hair, a little shorter than it was when they last saw each other, ringed with summer flowers. Familiar green eyes staring at him with love and concern and fear and all the emotions Legolas refused for so long to see, to acknowledge. The dark green and forest brown tunic the delegates had been wearing, no thick, elaborate robes. Legolas’ eyes are caught by the rise and fall of his father’s chest.</p><p>“But-but I thought-“ he cuts off, his breath and his words failing him as his mind screeches to a halt. “I don’t-“</p><p>“Legolas?”</p><p>“Galion was alone at the front and I couldn’t see you and-“ Legolas manages to say, the words feeling like they’re cutting him open even as they flee from him.</p><p>“Oh.” His father exclaims, his face morphing first in confusion, then into horrified understanding. “Oh, Las nin, <em>no!</em> I’m fine. I’m well. I’m <em>here.</em>” His father says, sounding as genuine as he always does. “I was riding with Lord Celeborn. I didn’t realize that you wouldn’t-“ his father pauses and slowly opens his arms, Legolas lets out a strangled sob and all but throws himself against his father’s chest, his arms coming up to wrap around his father and cling like he hasn’t allowed himself to do in so long that he can’t remember the last time. “I’m sorry.” His father murmurs, even as his strong arms close around Legolas, and he feels <em>safe, warm, loved, </em>the way he always has when he’s in his father’s arms. He doesn’t remember the last time.</p><p>“I thought you were dead, and I was so-“ sorry. He thinks, sorry, and scared, and guilty, and so Eru damned stupid. “I’m so sorry, ada. I’ve been so mean and stupid and cruel and you didn’t deserve any of it and-“</p><p>“Hush, Legolas.” His father soothes him, rubbing gentle circles into his back. “There will be time to mend whatever came between us in the morning, for now, you need to rest. You’ve had more than enough crying today.”</p><p>“But-“</p><p>“Shush, I will be here in the morning, I promise, but it hurts me to see you like this, ion nin.” His father says and Legolas wonders how horrible he must look; he hasn’t let himself cry like this for a long time. “For what its worth, I forgive you all that you seek forgiveness for.”</p><p>“You shouldn’t.”</p><p>“Ah, but that’s my choice to make, isn’t it?” his father counters, his chest vibrating with a soft laugh. “Sleep. Tomorrow is a new day and we can face it together.”</p><p>“But-</p><p>“Sleep, Legolas.” His father commands, Legolas huffs at him but snuggles against his chest and doesn’t argue as his eyes slip closed with the realization that he’s more exhausted than he thought.</p><p>“Ada-“</p><p>“Legolas-!“</p><p>“-if you’re not here in the morning. I just want you to know, I love you.” He says before he surrenders to Irmo’s grasp.</p><p>He doesn’t see the stricken look that forms on his father’s face, nor does he hear the words whispered in his ear.</p><p>“I love you, too, Las nin, more than anything, more than life.”</p>
<hr/><p>When Anor rises in the morning, she is greeted by the sight of the King and Prince of Greenwood the Great wrapped in each other’s arms, sound asleep.</p><p>Everything is once more right in the world.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I gave myself the challenge to write a fic that was like 'Bitch, you thought?!?!' </p><p>If it wasn't clear enough. Galion and Thran been pretty much attached at the hip since forever. Legolas sees Galion riding at the head of the Greenwood delegation and can't see his father at all and immediately jumps to the conclusion that his father has been killed... turns out, Thran was just in the middle of an intense discussion with Celeborn (specifically, about who got to claim the proceeds from the spider silk, given SOME of the spiders were left alone so they could harvest their webs... and that Celeborn now ruled the Southern part of Mirkwood... sorry, East Lorien.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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